Note: This story was written before Matt Kelemen's untimely passing.
Social media algorithms have been very good to Janet Jackson lately. Jackson’s 2001 song “Someone to Call My Lover” gained traction on TikTok after becoming a go-to soundtrack for animal-lover clips and viral dance shorts. It placed her back on Billboard charts, and is her most popular song on Apple Music and Spotify as she returns to Las Vegas this month for the second round of Janet Jackson: Las Vegas.
The buoyant single about being free to play the field after ending a relationship wasn’t part of her residency sets earlier this year, but the headlines it made recently for going viral may be enough to add it to the more than 40 songs she already performs. It was part of her Together Again Tour last year, so the band and dancers already know what to do.
Not that her shows are lacking without the buoyant pop gem. It’s just a safe prediction that the familiar blend of acoustic guitar riff from America’s “Ventura Highway” and melody of Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédie No. 1” would draw a burst of enthusiasm from longtime fans and new rounds of uploads from TikTok influencers.
Jackson grew up being an influencer. Her fan base took root long before there was social media, when she and brother Randy opened for The Jackson 5 before concerts and appeared on The Carol Burnett Show to sing Sonny & Cher’s “The Beat Goes On.” Jackson was more interested in singing than acting, though, developing a Mae West impression that she brought to television when she starred in ’70s sitcom Good Times.
In her teens, she was Charlene on Diff’rent Strokes, then had a role on the television adaptation of Fame. The two pop albums she recorded before 1986’s Control lacked the production methods Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis would apply to groundbreaking hits such as “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “Nasty.” Billboard’s Top 10 singles chart would be a familiar place for her from then on.
Control, much like “Someone to Call My Lover,” came at a time of emancipation for Jackson. She had ended her first marriage and her managerial relationship with her father, subsequently cultivating a public image of independence and self-assurance. She became a fashion icon as well, influencing the MTV generation through videos for “When I Think of You” and “Rhythm Nation.”
Jackson’s influence on subsequent generations of entertainers is so prevalent it’s hard to imagine what music would have been like without her. The sounds she created with Jam and Lewis, the choreography standards for videos she developed with Paula Abdul and her autobiographical songwriting has affected everyone from Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys to Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.
By the time she takes the stage in Las Vegas again, she will have just turned 59. She’s still the Queen of Pop, still an influencer, still capable of generating excitement via the most popular media form of the day. And the full-time mom still has the energy to thrill fans with marathon concerts, so she does.
Resorts World Las Vegas. axs.com
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